


Pink and Black and Blue

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25508692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: “I don’t know how you do it, man.”“How I do what?” Jackson’s eyebrows quirk as he stands up, tugging March with him. “Fight?”“It’s exhausting,” March nods, and allows himself to be hauled to his feet. They’re standing near enough that their chests brush, and March sways toward Jackson a little when he’s vertical, wobbly with fatigue. “And it hurts.”Jackson snorts. “Well, I know how to throw a punch without nearly breaking my goddamn hand, for one thing.”
Relationships: Jackson Healy/Holland March
Comments: 16
Kudos: 90
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Pink and Black and Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squishy_TRex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squishy_TRex/gifts).



> Happy Rare Male Slash Exchange, recipient!
> 
> [Title credit to Chairlift’s “Bruises.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ9hLOHj8ag)

It’s going on four o’clock in the morning when Jackson peels into the cul de sac and comes to a jerky stop in front of the rental. There’s a slithering, pressurized knot at work behind his sternum and his pulse is running fast and hot under his skin, his head throbbing with every beat. He doesn’t look over at March as he throws the car into park and yanks the keys from the ignition, or as he climbs from the car, slams the door behind him, and stalks off up the concrete walkway to let himself into the house.

He can hear March behind him, moving at a more subdued pace, though there’s a banked frustration in the heavy bang of metal as he shuts the door on his side of the car, and in the precise, loping steps he takes. He catches up with Jackson just as Jackson is shouldering his way into the foyer, hovering on the threshold for a second before following Jackson inside.

Jackson throws the keys into the little trinket dish on the decorative end table around the corner with more force than is strictly necessary and then wheels around to pin March with a dark glower. March, the bastard, has his back to Jackson, closing the door gently and twisting the deadbolt with a loud, ominous _shunk!_

When he turns back around, he leans his shoulders against the door, sinking his weight back into it, and glares at Jackson in turn. For a long moment, neither of them say anything. Silence sprawls between them, thick and poisonous like the smog choking the city skyline, uninterrupted but for the distant, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantle in the living room.

March’s tie is loose and off-center and one side of his shirt is untucked. The seam at one of his shoulders is ripped and bleeding thread and cotton lining, stark white against the burgundy of his silk-blend suit coat. His hair has fallen free of its neat coif to flop over his forehead and there’s a dark bruise smeared across the sharp bone of his cheek, a shallow split shining red and wet at the center. He’s cradling his right hand to his chest, and Jackson can see the blood on his knuckles even from here, glinting gemstone bright in the syrupy light from the fixture overhead. Jackson shakes his head and scrubs his hand over his jaw, tearing his eyes away while his stomach lurches.

He sweeps a hand through the air, beckoning March to follow, and grunts, “C’mon,” before he turns down the hallway.

“Oh,” March says behind him, tone high and snide, “we’re talking now?”

Jackson doesn’t answer him, instead taking a sweet, petty satisfaction in the way March scoffs, “Unbelievable,” even as he falls into step at Jackson’s back.

Jackson doesn’t bother with the light in the bedroom—there’s enough streaming in through the slatted blinds from a nearby streetlamp that it’s no trouble to cross the floor despite the ever-present minefield of March’s cast off daywear—but he flips the switch in the bathroom when he gets there. He ushers March in first, jerking his thumb at the toilet and instructing, “Sit down.”

March rolls his eyes but does as he’s told, for once in his goddamn life. Jackson waits until he’s settled and then digs around under the counter for the medical kit.

“You know, this whole silent treatment thing you’re doing?” March says. “It’s a patented Holly March technique.”

The implication being that Jackson is acting like a teenage girl, or so he gathers. As teenage girls go, Jackson finds Holly to be eminently reasonable, for the most part. Her frustration with her father is usually well justified, anyway, and Jackson could be in much poorer company when it comes to measures of emotional maturity. The only place where Holly really falls down is in matters of her own safety. It’s one of the lesser traits she’s inherited from her father, though March plays faster and looser with his well-being than Jackson suspects Holly ever will with her own.

He pulls a couple of gauze pads and some assorted bandages out of the bag and looks over at March. “Jacket needs to come off.”

March stares him down for a long, furious second, jaw tight and mouth pressed into a thin, angry line. Jackson arches an eyebrow and March sighs through his nose, rolling his eyes toward the heavens. He shrugs his jacket off, wincing a little as he guides it carefully over his busted knuckles, and folds it over the side of the tub. He reaches up a second later to pull the knot of his tie loose before removing it, too, likely more for comfort than out of any deference to Jackson’s instruction.

Jackson leaves him there for a moment, stopping to shrug free of his own jacket and toss it onto the bed on his way to the kitchen. He rifles through the tupperware cabinet until he comes up with something big enough to submerge March’s hand in, with a little room left over. He carts it back to the bathroom with him, setting it down on the counter before leaning in to wash his hands.

He can feel March watching him, the hot, angry weight of his gaze prickling like a sunburn on the back of Jackson’s neck, but he refuses to give March the satisfaction of seeing him sweat. When his hands are suitably clean, Jackson dries them on the towel strung through the ring mounted on the wall and reaches for the plastic tub. He gives it a cursory rinse and then fills it with warm water and a little soap.

He takes the bin, the gauze, and the bandages and goes to sit on the edge of the bathtub, close enough to March that their knees brush. He balances the container carefully along the lip of the tub and sets the gauze and the bandages down beside it, then turns his attention properly to March for the first time since he hauled the other man out of a supply warehouse in the harbor district a half hour or so earlier.

March looks even worse under the bright fluorescence of the bathroom lights, eyes shadowed and skin clammy. He’s holding himself a little awkwardly and Jackson makes a mental note to check his ribs once he’s finished taking stock of everything else.

“Gimme your hand.”

March does, and Jackson curls his fingers around March’s wrist. He undoes the button at March’s cuff and rolls his sleeve up just under his elbow, sloppy and imprecise, then reaches for one of the gauze pads, folding it in half and pressing it gently down onto March’s knuckles.

March makes a soft sound of discomfort, fingers twitching against Jackon’s arm. He submits silently to Jackson’s attentions, both of them watching as a few beads of red seep through where the gauze covers March’s first two knuckles. Jackson gives it a second and grabs another pad. He only folds it in half this time, before laying it out atop the first one and holding it down in kind. When nothing comes up through the additional layer after thirty seconds, Jackson pulls the gauze away, slow and careful, and guides March’s hand into the soapy water.

March winces, tensing up, and Jackson brushes his thumb over the fine bone of March’s wrist in a soft, soothing stroke. He relaxes a little, though there’s still a tight set to his shoulders and an unhappy twist to his mouth, and closes his eyes while Jackson shifts his hand back and forth in the water, letting the gentle current knock loose any dirt or debris.

When Jackson considers the wounds to be sufficiently cleaned, he lifts March’s hand back out again and pats his knuckles dry with a fresh gauze pad. He sets March’s hand down on his knee, and March lets it rest there, deadweight, while Jackson unwraps a couple of knuckle bandages, shaped like little H’s in a pale, rubbery flesh tone a few shades off from March’s summer tan. He curls them around March’s first two fingers, and March opens his eyes again and watches him work.

He hisses when Jackson gets to his ring finger, shifting a little on the toilet seat lid. Jackson glances up at him, eyebrows raised in question.

”Hurts,” March explains, brusque and mulish.

Jackson nods and looks it over. The knuckle is a little swollen, and it’s scraped all to hell just like the others, but there’s no bruising or protrusions that he can see. “Can you move it for me?”

March grits his teeth wiggles the digit, slow and clumsy. Jackson nods again and taps the side of his hand.

”Good. Make a fist?”

March does, though it takes him a second and a few heaving, horsey breaths through his nose to manage it.

“Jammed,” Jackson pronounces, while March unfurls his fingers again and sighs his relief out in a hot gust. “Not broken.”

”Well thank fuck for that,” March drawls, dry and sarcastic. “One more late night visit to the emergency room and they’re gonna start slipping me pamphlets about spousal abuse.”

It’s a tasteless joke, and Jackson doesn’t bother dignifying it with a response. March likes to run his mouth when he’s uncomfortable and there’s not usually much input from his brain involved.

Jackson lifts his head and tilts his chin toward the kit still lying open on the counter. “Hand me the tape?”

March has to do a funny sort of reach-through under his own arm to grab it, but he does so without complaint, hooking a finger through the middle as if it were an ill-fitting piece of jewelry. He holds the little roll out to Jackson, who takes it without comment and proceeds to carefully bind March’s ring finger to his pinky in two separate places.

When he’s finished, he turns his attention to the cut on March’s face. He gets his fingers up under March’s chin, savoring the soft rasp of March’s two-day scruff as Jackson guides him to turn his head to the side for a better angle.

March’s eyes are heavy-lidded, the usual bright blue shaded steely dark. The corners of his mouth tilt up and he asks in a low rumble, “What’s the prognosis, doc? Am I gonna live?”

Jackson sighs, meeting March’s gaze and raising a single, unimpressed eyebrow. “Despite your best efforts to the contrary, yeah,” he says, and gives March’s chin a gentle squeeze. “I think so.” He puts his hands on his knees and pushes up onto his feet, gathering the plastic tub and the gauze as he orders, “Sit tight. We’re not finished yet.”

March nods and does as he’s told. He’s being strangely placid, for all his earlier outrage—quiet and wrung-out, though Jackson isn’t about to complain. Adrenaline will do that to you, and Lord knows March had enough of it pumping through his system before they made their daring escape. Jackson is coming down some, himself, feeling hollow and a little queasy in that way he always does after he almost loses a fight.

He dumps the water, tinged faintly pink, into the sink and washes it all down, rinsing the tub for good measure. He won’t need it for March’s face, so he sets it aside and ducks into the linen cabinet for a clean washcloth, which he wets in warm water and spritzes with a little soap. He works it up into a lather and then hits the washcloth with another jet of water, wringing some of the soap out so there’s not too much, before returning to his seat next to March.

The split on his cheek looks nasty, but it isn’t too deep and is mostly through bleeding by the time Jackson gets to it. He passes over it with the washcloth a couple of times while March sucks a pained breath through his teeth and squeezes his eyes closed again.

“Almost done,” Jackson murmurs, twisting around to grab a butterfly bandage. He lays it out across the wound, pinching just slightly to bring the edges of the cut together, and smooths it into place with his thumb. He cups his palm over March’s uninjured cheek when he’s finished, and announces, “There you go. All taken care of.”

March heaves a deep, heavy sigh and leans his face into the contact without opening his eyes. He brings his left hand up to curl his fingers over Jackson’s wrist and holds him there for a long, quiet second.

When he’s had his fill of this particular comfort, March shakes his head and straightens up, peering over at Jackson with a faint, tired smile. “I don’t know how you do it, man.”

“How I do what?” Jackson’s eyebrows quirk as he stands up, tugging March with him. “Fight?”

“It’s exhausting,” March nods, and allows himself to be hauled to his feet. They’re standing near enough that their chests brush, and March sways toward Jackson a little when he’s vertical, wobbly with fatigue. “And it hurts.”

Jackson snorts. “Well, I know how to throw a punch without nearly breaking my goddamn hand, for one thing.”

March laughs, soft and self-deprecating, and slips his arms over Jackson’s shoulders. Jackson curls his hands around March’s skinny hips and leans in until their foreheads are pressed together. March smells like sweat and cigarette smoke and the cologne that Holly picked out for his last birthday. He’s warm and alive in Jackson’s arms and the fear that Jackson hadn’t let himself feel earlier rushes through him in a swift, roaring geyser, there and then gone so fast that Jackson’s knees nearly go out under him. He takes a slow, shaky breath and licks his lips, mouth dry as he sighs, “Don’t do that again, alright? You leave the bruising to me from here on in.”

March stiffens a little, voice waspish when he replies, “The man had you on the ropes, Jack. Like hell am I gonna sit by and watch some two-bit Don Corleone wannabe lay you out cold when I can do something about it.”

Jackson bites back his instinctual response, which is that March getting himself beat to hell in Jackson’s place is a generous definition of ‘doing something,’ and murmurs, “I know,” instead. 

He tilts his head to catch March in a kiss and March relaxes into it, mollified. He cups his hands around the back of Jackson’s neck, threading his fingers up through Jackson’s hair, and moans sweetly into his mouth.

They stay there for a while, breathing each other’s air and trading slick, lazy kisses, hands roaming with no real intent of pushing the moment any further than it’s already gone.

“Alright,” March sighs some time later, extricating himself from Jackson’s grip just enough to catch his breath. His mouth is wet and bright and bee-stung, face flushed pink. He licks his lips and flashes Jackson a fond, tired grin. “Not that this isn’t fun and all, but I gotta get out of these pants.”

“I told you to buy ‘em a size up,” Jackson reminds him. As much as they flatter March’s admittedly fine ass, there’s not much to recommend skin-tight slacks for the kind of work they were doing tonight.

“I’m willing to suffer for my art,” March replies breezily, turning to head out into the bedroom and working the buttons on his shirt as he goes. 

Jackson rolls his eyes and follows. “I’m serious about teaching you to throw a punch,” he says, stopping to lean against the doorframe with his arms over his chest, while March rounds the far side of the bed and shimmies out of his pants.

He’s framed in the white wedge of light spilling from the bathroom, shirt half undone over his obscenely tight briefs, and Jackson’s heart pounds hard in his chest at the sight of him.

“That’s great,” March says, working his way down the line of remaining buttons and baring inch after inch of sweet, pale skin. “We’ll get right on it. First thing tomorrow.” He rolls his shoulders back, shucking his shirt off onto the floor, and flashes Jackson a sly, challenging smirk. “In the meantime, I got a couple other things you could show me, if you think you’re up to the task.”

Jackson snorts and arches his eyebrows. “You think _you’re_ up for it?”

“Not yet,” March shrugs, and dips the fingers of his good hand just below his waistband, “but I could be, you give me a minute to get a few good tugs in.”

Jackson shakes his head. “You know, it’s a wonder you ever get laid, peddling lines like that.”

“You’re the one who keeps buyin’ ‘em.” March shrugs again, mouth tilting up on one side, and pushes his fingers a little further down, until his thumb is hooked over his waistband at the V of his palm. “You got plans to stand there in the doorway all night? ‘Cause I was kind of figuring this for a team effort.” He waves a hand between them and jerks his chin at the bed in invitation.

Jackson crosses his arms over his chest and puts his head to one side, considering. “Maybe I’m looking forward to a little bit of a show, first.”

March licks his lips, hooded gaze sinking a shade darker. He nods and swallows, rasping, “I can work with that.”

He steps out of his briefs and clambers up onto the bed without ceremony, situating himself on his side with one knee bent up and his cheek resting against the knuckles of his good hand, like a pin-up pose out of a girly magazine except he doesn’t quite have the grace to pull it off. He strokes the fingertips of his other hand up and down the inside of his thigh and asks, “Anything in particular you want to see?”

“I’d like to see you turn that light on, for starters,” Jackson suggests, pointing to the lamp on the bedside table at March’s back. “Not much of a peep show in the dark.”

March deflates a little and glowers at Jackson across the room. “You know,” he says, even as he rolls onto his back and reaches awkwardly up under the shade to twist the little knob, “you’re really killing the mood, here, Jack.” The lamp clicks on and floods him in soft, diffused light. It casts gentle shadows over the planes and curves of his body and picks out little threads of spun gold in his hair, in the stubble flocking his cheek.

Jackson feels his own cock stir in his jeans at the sight and he reaches over to flip the bathroom light off, in turn, further heightening the ambiance. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs, delighting in the rosy flush that floods up the column of March’s throat even as he flashes Jackson a sharp, warning scowl in disapproval of the endearment. “Why don’t you get a hand on yourself, huh?”

It seems like a safe place to start, and March acquiesces to the request readily enough even though he’s being a little petulant about it. He settles back into the pillows, legs spread just so, and gets a hand around his still mostly-soft dick. His taped up fingers stick out at a funny angle when he curls the others into a fist, but March doesn’t seem to mind, stroking himself slow and lazy. He makes a soft, pleased noise behind his teeth as his cock starts to fill, rocking his hips up into his grip in shallow thrusts.

“This what you wanted?” he asks Jackson, sounding honestly curious underneath the thin veneer of coy affectation.

Jackson hums his confirmation and pushes up off the doorframe, crossing the room to hover at the edge of the mattress. He toes his shoes off as he goes and relocates his jacket to the bedpost when he’s near enough to reach it. 

March watches his approach, sly and sleepy, and angles his knees outward to broaden the spread of his thighs. He twists his wrist as he slides his hand up his length, sighing toward the ceiling, low and satisfied.

He makes a pretty picture, with his mussed hair and his bruised face, the whole long, lean expanse of him on display for Jackson’s pleasure. The flush has spread from his throat up across the freckled bridge of his nose and a little way down his chest, lighting him up in sweet shades of pink that Jackson knows from experience taste even better than they look.

“So?” March asks, blue eyes glazed and glassy with want as he rolls his hips up, making the muscles of his stomach clench and shiver. “Was it worth the ticket?”

“Five-star reviews all around,” Jackson rumbles, and climbs onto the bed beside him.

March arches an eyebrow, mouth curled with amusement, and reaches out to pluck gently at the fabric of Jackson’s shirt. “You wanna lose the duds?”

“In a minute,” Jackson assures him, and leans in for a kiss.

March arches up to meet him and Jackson cups his palm over March’s jaw. He brushes his thumb across the plane of March’s cheek, relishing in the drag of March’s scruff against his skin and the small, choked-off noise that March makes against his mouth.

March moves away just far enough to speak. Their foreheads and noses are still brushing and his breath gusts hot over Jackson’s mouth as he sighs plaintively, “Fuck, Jack, come on.” He abandons his cock for a moment in favor of getting both of his hands around the back of Jackson’s neck and tugging Jackson over top of him.

“Alright,” Jackson soothes, and follows where March leads. He’s up on one elbow, face directly above March’s while March tilts his face up to meet him for another kiss. 

He slides his fingers up to tangle in Jackson’s hair and licks past his teeth, pushy and demanding, as he almost always is between the sheets, trying to rile Jackson into something fast and rough. March prefers it that way, Jackson suspects because he doesn’t have to think about what he and Jackson are doing when everything is keyed up and verging on desperate, doesn’t have to deal with any of the implications or, God forbid, feelings that arise with a slower, more tender coupling. While Jackson is generally happy to have March any way he can get him, he’d like to take his time tonight.

He gentles March with a hand on his flank, tracing the rungs of his ribs down toward his waist. March makes a high, frustrated noise and bites at his mouth in retaliation.

“Hey,” Jackson reprimands, pulling back while March collapses into the pillows underneath him with a poisonous glare. Jackson can’t help but grin at the dramatics. He curves his hand over March’s hip and gives it a little, soothing squeeze, leaning in to press a lazy kiss to his scowl. “Relax.”

March sighs but submits, and Jackson kisses him until his lips are tingling, wet and edging toward sore with overstimulation. March’s face, when he pulls back, is red all across his jaw. They’ll both be wrecked with beard burn tomorrow, but it’s been a while since either of them cared about that.

“Stay still,” Jackson instructs, and March immediately starts wiggling against the mattress, unable to help himself because he knows what’s coming. _“Still,”_ he repeats, reaching down to take March’s wrists in either hand and pin them pointedly to the bedspread.

“I was!” March huffs. “Then you started talking about it, and now I keep noticing, and when I notice, I want to move.”

Jackson sighs through his nose and levers himself over March properly, sinking his weight down into his chest, just enough that March can feel it over top of him, warm and firm and strong enough that he could hold March in place even if March decided he wanted to struggle, for whatever reason. March's whole body goes taut for a sharp sliver of a second and then he heaves a slow breath and almost seems to melt, body going lax like somebody went through and unhooked all his ligaments, as the tension seeps out of him.

“Better?” Jackson asks, stroking his thumb over the fluttering beat of March’s pulse.

March nods, humming a little, content. Jackson rewards him by ducking his head to suck a red mark over his collarbone. He noses his way down March’s torso, detouring to close his teeth over one nipple, then the other, taking careful stock as he goes. There’s a little bruising on March’s right side, but it isn’t dark enough that Jackson feels the need to interrupt their momentum to check for broken ribs. He drinks in all the soft, clipped noises that March is making, fingers twitching against the bedspread where he’s fighting to follow Jackson’s instructions.

His cock is hard and red, leaking against his belly. Jackson licks a stripe from the base to the crown and then takes it smugly into his mouth while March gasps and swears, fisting his hands in the sheets. Jackson bars March’s hips with an arm—because March is a flailing sort and Jackson doesn’t trust him to keep still under his own power despite his best efforts—and gets his other hand around the base of March’s dick. He occupies himself there for a while, taking March deep and then backing off to tongue the glans and lick around the head while March whimpers and shakes. 

Jackson isn’t being particularly neat about his technique, and things have gotten wet enough that it’s only a matter of dragging his finger through the mess for makeshift lubrication and pressing his first knuckle past the tight ring of March’s asshole to tank what little there is left of March’s rapidly depleting willpower. March moans and rocks his hips, reaching down to push Jackson’s hair up off his forehead and get a stinging fistful of it. He yanks Jackson’s face up, impolite in his eagerness, and Jackson marvels at the hot blown black of March’s eyes, his pale face so flushed he looks fevered. 

“Jack,” he warns, voice thin and cracking, “if you don’t get your dick in me right fucking now, I swear to God.”

Jackson chuckles and bends to press a kiss to March’s thigh. “Alright, sweetheart.”

March doesn’t protest the endearment this time, relinquishing his grip on Jackson’s hair when Jackson starts to sit up. His chest is rising and falling like he’s just come in from a jog, hair curling dark at his temples and whole body sheened with sweat. 

Jackson strips his own shirt off and tosses it over the side of the bed without looking. He swings his legs off the bed and kicks his jeans and shorts down, cock thick and heavy where it springs up against his belly. He has to bend over to tug his socks off, but it’s the work of a second, and he’s leaning up over March again before the other man gathers the wherewithal to complain.

They keep lube in the drawer of the bedside table, and Jackson leans over to fish it out while March brings his knees up to bracket Jackson’s hips. Jackson screws the cap off with his teeth and slicks up the first two fingers of his right hand, hitching March’s leg up onto his elbow. He pauses there to take in the view for a long enough measure that March squirms and digs his heel into Jackson’s side with a muttered, “Get a move on.”

Jackson circles around the outside of March’s hole with the pads of his fingers, enjoying the way March rocks his hips, tacitly asking for more. He works his fingers into the warm clench of March’s body with slow, steady strokes, pushing deeper and deeper while March pants and moans. Every part of March is familiar territory by now, and when he gets in far enough, Jackson crooks his fingers to press against March’s prostate, pulling a low, warbling groan out of him as he arches his back up off the bed.

“Oh, _fuck,_ Jack.”

Jackson shifts March’s leg up over his shoulder, brushing an absent kiss to his knee, and works him over for a good, long while, until March is sweating and shaking and loose enough that Jackson can slip a third finger into him without difficulty. March whines when he slides his fingers free a few seconds later, and Jackson drags a hand along March’s thigh where it’s pressed against his chest, soothing, “Easy, sweetheart. Just gimme a second.” 

They’ve been at this long enough that they’re well beyond the days of condoms, so Jackson just slicks himself up and positions himself, breaching into the welcoming heat with a shallow roll of his hips. March makes a little, punched out sound, half desire and half relief, and Jackson rocks back and then in even further. March says something that might be Jackson’s name, warped around a sob, and thrashes back against the pillows.

If he’s being honest, Jackson didn’t think he’d be having sex this good in his fifties. Certainly not after June left him, but it’s better with March than it was with her. It's better than the couple of fumbling trysts Jackson indulged during his time on the avocado farm. It’s better than it’s ever been, really, which just goes to show that first impressions aren’t always the most accurate ones. He fucks March at his leisure, pulling out almost all the way and sinking back in deep to grind his hips in tight, slow circles on no particular schedule or rhythm.

March is a writhing mess of sweat and precome. His cock is hard and angry where it’s drooling onto his belly but he doesn’t lift a hand to attend to it, just clings to the sheets with white-knuckle ferocity and grits his teeth against a sob every time Jackson drags over his prostate. He has his eyes screwed shut and his lower lip is bitten berry-red in the middle, a token of his efforts to keep himself respectably quiet, though he’s failing in that endeavor more than he succeeds. Jackson worries that he might split it if he bites too hard, but they’ve already got the med kit out so he figures they can cross that bridge if and when they come to it.

Jackson can feel sweat rolling down his own back, abdomen starting to burn a little as he works. He shifts in closer, taking a step or two forward on his knees and tilting March’s hips up for a better angle. March sighs and shudders all the way out to his fingertips. Jackson smiles down at him. He slides a hand down March’s thigh to his hip and starts, “You want me to - ”

“No!” March breathes, shaking his head without opening his eyes. “No, just - keep going, I - I’m close. ” He tucks his lip up under his teeth, breathing harsh through his nose. _“Fuck,_ I’m really, really close.”

Jackson obliges. It only takes a few more minutes of fucking into March at that same pace, slow and deep and lazy, before March hitches a breath and starts gasping, a litany of swear words interspersed with Jackson’s name, and comes all over himself. His body goes even tighter and hotter around Jackson, who thrusts once, and again, and then follows him over the edge in quick succession. He holds onto March’s hips hard enough to bruise and grits March’s name out through his teeth, “Holland. _Holland,_ oh, fuck!”

Jackson slumps over March and kisses him while they catch their breath. There’s an earthy, metallic bloom at the back of March’s tongue when he tangles it lazily with Jackson’s own. Jackson comes back to himself just enough to recognize the taste of blood and straightens up again. Sure enough, there’s a bright smear on March’s chin, welling from the swollen cushion of his lower lip. Jackson presses his thumb against it and March hisses and turns his face away, folding his arm over his eyes.

“Got yourself pretty good there,” Jackson observes.

March sighs through his nose and cracks one narrow, sleepy eye at Jackson from underneath his elbow. He licks at his lip and winces, muttering, “Anybody asks, it happened at the warehouse.”

“Sure,” Jackson chuckles, and leans in to brush a kiss to March’s temple. March grunts in protest as the motion shifts Jackson’s softening cock inside him, and Jackson pulls out, as conscientious of March’s comfort as he can be. “Anything to preserve your newly-minted reputation as a common street tough.”

“Glad you understand,” March slurs. He’s on the cusp of dropping off, muscles loose and eyelids drooping, but he perks up a bit, frowning, when Jackson makes to climb off the bed. “Where you goin’?”

“Getting a towel,” Jackson explains. “And something for that lip.” 

March makes a low, displeased noise and drags a clumsy hand through the air to beckon Jackson back. “C’mere a sec, ‘fore you do that.” When he’s near enough, March reaches up and curls his palm over Jackson’s cheek, tilting his chin up in invitation.

Jackson ducks down to kiss him again, close-mouthed and sweet, like a couple of teenagers at the soda fountain. March sweeps his thumb back and forth over Jackson’s cheek, drinking his fill of affection. He takes a deep breath through his nose and turns his face to sigh a warm, wet current against Jackson’s throat.

“Lay down with me,” he murmurs. He has his eyes closed, nosing blindly at the hinge of Jackson’s jaw. “Just for a second.”

He reeks of sweat and sex, and he’s going to be miserable in the morning if they don’t clean up, half-stuck to everything and with a fat lip besides.

Jackson spoons up behind him, getting a possessive arm over March’s waist and a thigh between his legs. He sighs against the damp ruff of March’s hairline and warns, “Five minutes, then I'm going to get some ice.”

March hums in agreement and slides his arm over Jackson’s. “Love you.”

He’s as good as asleep already, has to be, if he’s throwing out declarations like that, but Jackson pulls him a little closer anyway, basking in the bright, effervescent rush of his pulse where it’s drumming with joy under his skin.

Maybe, he considers, as March relaxes back against him, he’ll give it ten.


End file.
